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Give developers a chance (discussion about the Appstore ratings and reviewing system)

Theappmachine

Theappmachine

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 24, 2010
93
0
I don't know what you think, but it seems very clear to me that the rating and reviewing system of the App Store is pretty unfair. I know I'm not the first one talking about it either.

You get bad reviews and few stars ratings for the simple reason that, very often, only disappointed people use to write comments, and that is pretty obvious that if I'm deleting an app is probably because I don't find it useful.

I also see amazing apps with definitely stupid comments that have nothing to do with the app or that sound like someone looking for something to yell out for.

I'm happy that Apple removed the rating request when users delete an app with the iOs 4, even if they should have done it a long time ago. But bad ratings will persist because of the previous system and new apps will take advantage of the new one. This is good and this is bad.

But comments... what could Apple do to give developers the chance to play a fair game? Since there's no way to ask people that love your apps to go and review them what do you think could be a good idea?

I got one but I'm honestly not convinced, and would love to share it with you and to read your opinions.

What if developers could answer comments? I mean, if a 10 years geeky kid with a messed up jailbroken device can't run my app and goes to the appstore and writes:

this app is ugly it doesn't even work and crashes every second! DON'T DOWNLOAD IT!!!!

Why developers shouldn't have the right to comment back? I mean, one straight professional and polite answer like:

We apologize for the inconvenient, we'll investigate your problems. If you could be more specific we'll be glad to receive an email that details your problem. In the meanwhile pleae check your device and try to free some memory restarting it or restoring it if the problem persists.

Maybe, to avoid an endless line of comments going on and back, this should be a one way/one shot method. Developers can comment back one time only to every comment and users can comment back via email starting a dialog with the developer to improve the app and solve their problems.

What do you guys think?

p.s. sorry if I made some english mistake, I'm not a native speaker :)
 
I couldn't agree more with you. When I consider buying an app, I check the written reviews (not the average ratings). I ignore most 1 star reviews. After all, if an app was only worth 1 star (crashing, not doing what it says it will), I'm sure Apple would not approve it in the first place.

Most people who post bad reviews probably do it with a jailbroken or non-supported device/OS. Majority of the time, a simple device restart solves any crashing! I've only ever had 1 app ever crash on me (even after restarting), so I contacted the developers, and they said that they were aware and were working on an update. The update came within a week :)

I think people need to contact the developer (or the support representative) with any issues before leaving bad reviews.

The thing I hate the most is when people download a free app and rate it 1 star because they don't like it. That's why I wish more apps were paid apps. For example: Tweetie 2 had so many 4 & 5 star ratings, and almost no 1 star ratings. Not that Twitter acquired it and made it free, there are almost 500 1 star ratings in the Canadian store for it. I bet half those ratings are from people who don't even know what Twitter is lol:p
 
There's really no way to fix if they continue to show everyone's reviews by default. They definitely need a way to create some type of social circle of reviewers you trust. Then each person could get customized review listings of people like them or people they trust (however they decide to do it). If they could do this in an automated way, I think it could be useful.
 
If an app is decent, but I've found something that suits my needs better, I'll give the deleted app four stars, if it crashes a lot, I'll give it three stars, if it does as it says, and it's everything I was looking for, then definitely five stars.

I've only given a one star review once, and that was for an app that was supposed to sync my contacts with Gmail, but ended up duplicating contacts twice and three times, changing first and last names, and crashing halfway through the first sync, which left me with two hours of fixing up my contacts again.

I definitely agree, developers should have a chance to respond to a review. Sometimes the user just doesn't know what they're doing, or they expected the app to do something different from what it was actually supposed to do.

I generally only rate apps that I'm happy with though, cause giving a good review will help out the developer, and hopefully that'll help keep them in business and putting out updates for an app I quite like.
 
I'm pretty happy of your answers dudes! :D

Maybe there's a chance to bring this to Apple.

I'll look into the developers forum to see if there's an appropriate section.

I'll keep you updated ;)
 
Didn't Jobs said something about this during a keynote, maybe iPhone OS 4 one?

I remember that Apple is going to replace the "review after delete" method.
 
What I have also noticed that isn't fair to developers is that some people rate 1 star and say its a great app!
Which then gives a lower star rating overall.
 
vettori said:
I've sent more or less the same suggestions to Apple about reviews back in late 2008...
Good Luck
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't believe too much in the possibility to change the situation proposing something to Apple... but at least to know your opinion is pretty important to me.

And if we will be a really large group... maybe we will have the Apple attention...
 
Fraaaa said:
Didn't Jobs said something about this during a keynote, maybe iPhone OS 4 one?

I remember that Apple is going to replace the "review after delete" method.
Click to expand...

Yeas definitely, and in iOs 4 the "RATE after delete" method has been removed.
 
GollumBoy said:
What I have also noticed that isn't fair to developers is that some people rate 1 star and say its a great app!
Which then gives a lower star rating overall.
Click to expand...

Yeah I've seen this too! That's really weird...

But the worst thing I have seen it was on an expensive golf app (somthing like 30 dollars)... there was one comment only:

"I wanted to buy this app to post a non sense review and give it one star"

I mean... we are not playing, we are working, and a place that accepts this kind of things is not 100% professional.
 
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